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Tuesday, September 18, 2012

The not-so-deep freeze

Saturday we came home late in the evening after having had a very busy day (garage sales, cell phone shopping, baseball game, the usual!) and noticed that our kitchen floor was sticky and the room smelled like bananas. Confused, I did a little sleuthing after we put the boys to bed and discovered that the smell and stickiness was coming from the bananas I had in our freezer.

Because they had melted.

Because our freezer had defrosted.

Because the refrigerator had stopped working.

Because it had happened a long time earlier, perhaps even during the night.

And now all our food was GONE!

A freezer (very) full of mostly meat was completely warm, and our refrigerator was only just cool. And this was late Saturday night, which meant we weren't going to get a repair person to come until Monday morning at the earliest.

Like any person in shock would, I closed the doors on all the soon to be rotting food and went to bed, after sending the husband off to his late night football party with steaks and hamburgers ready to throw on the grill. He said he was a rock star walking in with all that grub and I told him that I hoped he enjoyed it, since those steaks we salvaged would end up costing us several hundred dollars in groceries we would need to replace.

You see, there was nothing to be done. We were long past the point of salvaging anything that night, and, even if we could have, it ended up being another 56 hours before someone came to look at the unit this morning. And since it's older than dirt, we have to special order a part and who knows how long that will take! The helpful repairman did get the fridge working, but only in overdrive, so he says it will most likely freeze whatever we put in it. So, now we'll be defrosting on purpose! Awesome!

I spent most of this morning cleaning and sanitizing the freezer (melted meat juice! Yum!) and tossing all meat, dairy, and eggs from the fridge. For breakfast the last two days, the boys and I have had pumpkin spice cookies (with apples or chocolate chips, depending on the kid) because they don't require eggs or refrigeration. For lunch, we've had quesadillas (or they have, because I'm not really the dairy fan). For dinner, we've gone out because the kitchen crowded with all our bread products and veggies depresses me!